Bella smiled; it was about an hour later, and Rai had left the grill, wanting to catch up more. Caroline practically shooed Bella out the door when she asked if it was okay, "You know it's funny, on the plane down to Richmond, I started listening to our playlist... something just told me to listen to it, and so I did, and it's just funny that I just so happened to see you here, after that."  

He grinned at her. "Maybe it's a sign." 

She shook her head with a snort, "Maybe it is." 

He brought her to his favorite spot in the whole town. It was up by the falls, a place that he'd loved since he was a child.

She looked over at him, "It's weird, you know? how natural it is to just talk to you. I mean, it's always been easy for me to talk to you, but I just figured seeing you again would be weird or awkward, but no, it's the first thing that's felt even remotely normal to me in a long time." She was confused because it was never that easy for her to talk to Edward, and he claimed that she was his mate. 

Rai looked over at her as well, making them lock eyes. God, he wanted to tell her everything, but he knew that she'd think he was crazy. "It's a gift," he teased. 

She rolled her eyes, but there was no heat behind it. "I'm serious, though." She started thinking about how much more natural it was with Ray, now that she was more clear-minded, she realized that the whole thing with Edward just felt forced, and once again, it was confusing her because if she was his mate like he claimed, then why did it feel forced, and unnatural? 

Bella hadn't realized that she had been stuck in her own thoughts for a few minutes until she felt a gentle nudge at her shoulder, "Isa?" 

"Sorry, I was just thinking about something."

"do you want to talk about it?" he asked curiously.

She sighed, "You'll probably think I've lost my mind if I were to tell you everything. It's been an eventful eight months, to say the least." 

"Well, you never know, Isa, I might just surprise you." Rai grinned at her. 

She just gave him a look for a moment, "Fine, but don't say I didn't warn you, and also don't tell my aunt or cousin they'd probably try and have me committed somewhere." 

He just chuckled, "promise."

"Okay, so this started about ten months ago. My mom and Phil got married, and they really didn't get a real honeymoon, you know? so they wanted to travel a bit before the season started, so I decided to move in with my dad for a while and give them that time to themselves before the season started, and they'd be traveling for that as well... so two months later I moved to Forks with my dad... that's where things get complicated." 

He nodded, "Okay, I'm following along, but it can't be that bad." 

She gave him a look, "Just wait, so I started at Forks High School two days after I moved there, and I was, as always, my normal, almost painfully awkward around new people self, but I did make a few friends which made it easier but then in comes Bitchface or Edward if you want to get technical about it, but I will be referring to him as the former, anyway it's lunch time my first day at the school and now, just to be clear, I didn't even go into it looking for anything at all, wasn't even going to think about it, it just felt off to even think about it... anyway, back to what I was saying, in walks the Cullens, and one of my new friends was telling me about them and all that like I was looking at them for a minute and all that because they were all deathly pale, with the exact same color eyes and inhumanly gorgeous and then Bitchface walked in last, and this is where it starts to get weird." 

Rai clenched his jaw slightly; he was going to kill this wanna-be disco ball if he caused his Isa any harm whatsoever.

Bella continued to explain the story to him, "so he walked in, and I once again just looked at him for a moment because he looked exactly like the rest of them, and it was strange... they were all adopted and looked very similar who wouldn't find that weird? so then Bitchface looks at me and glares as if I somehow offended him when all I did was look at him."  As she continued to tell him everything that had happened since she moved to Forks, she noticed that he would get a little tense every time she mentioned Edward, and instinctively, she laid her hand on his arm, and he untensed and relaxed, which she noticed. 

About ten minutes later, she finished her story; she had told him every single detail about everything that had happened with Edward and Cullens. 

Rai had his jaw clenched because of how dare that wannabe disco ball play with his Isa like that and make her believe that she was his mate when she most definitely was not Edwards' mate. 

Bella watched Rai's reaction and furrowed her brow. She did not expect him to react like that. 

He took a deep breath before he looked at her, "I don't think you're crazy, Isa in fact, I know that you're not making any of that up; if I had known that you were going to get pulled into it anyway, I would have just told you from the start, but I was trying to protect you... but there are different types of vampires out there. There are the traditional ones, like the Dracula-type vampires, who burn in the sun, can't be near garlic, and don't show up in mirrors; stake to the heart can kill them, and then there are the nontraditional ones, who still burn in the sun but can be protected by wearing lapis lazuli jewelry spelled by a witch, and they can be out in the sun as long as they wear the jewelry, stake to the heart will still kill them, but they're also slightly different, they unlike the traditional type have a few things extra, like compulsion which is basically mind control, which just FYI probably wouldn't work on you because from what you've told me, you seem to have some sort of natural mental shield, which protects your mind, both of those types of vampires can feed off people without turning them, and eat normal human food, makes it easier for them to fit in and then you have the third type, the cold ones, which you know a little bit about already thanks to him." 

Bella nodded at him, "Wow, I didn't know that there were different types of vampires... how do you know all of that, and what do you mean you were trying to protect me?" 

Rai sighed, "I know so much about all of this because my family was turned into the very first nontraditional vampires, also known as the originals... you caught me by surprise when we met. I was only originally just passing through Pheonix, but I ran into you, and I just had to know you; at first, I didn't know why I felt so drawn to you like that... but then I explained the situation to one of my brothers, and he told me what it was and then, with my families reputation, I thought that it was better to just not tell you about all of that and then I thought it would be better if I just let you go and just live your life normally, even though leaving you, was the most difficult decision I've had to make, but I did it to protect you because I would not have been able to live with myself if you got hurt or worse because of me, I would have rather you hated me, for breaking your heart than to have anything happen to you on my watch."  

She stared at him, taking in everything he had just told her. "So you left to protect me from a threat that might never have actually happened?" She lightly smacked the back of his head. "I mean, I get it, in a way, but you're still an idiot for that. " She wasn't mad or upset because he never lied to her. Sure, he hadn't told her everything, but he hadn't lied to her.

He playfully rubbed the back of his head, "Okay, point taken; that was pretty stupid of me to think that I could actually live without you... but I will tell you this right now because he probably didn't, but cold one vampires have this thing that they can do; it's called their allure. They use it to draw in prey; basically, it makes the target focus only on them, and from what you explained, it sounds like he used it on you to make you think that you were in love with him, and then he told you it was because you were mates, but he wouldn't have treated you the way he did if you really were his mate, mates are sacred, they help ground control not lose it like you said he sometimes almost did with you, that's what they call a blood singer, which is not a mate, it's completely different."  

Bella bit her lip for a moment, Rai's words sinking in, and she realized that everything that she'd been thinking more clearly about since Edward had been gone, it all made sense that he had lied to her and tricked her into thinking that she was his mate... "so he just wanted my blood then... that's why he acted the way he did, he was probably planning on trying to kill me when he got bored..." 

Rai nodded, "Most likely, most cold ones can't resist draining their blood singers dry; upon first meeting them, he had some form of control not to do it right then, I'll say that... but he best hope I never meet him because I will straight up just end him for playing with you like that." 

***

Just after the vision, Alice ran straight to Edward, who immediately knew what the vision was because he could read her mind as soon as she was close enough to him. "Alice, that's not good." 

"I know, Edward, which is why I came straight here after I had the vision; we need to fix this before it's too late." 

"We need to go back to Forks, just you and me, and make sure that that vision doesn't happen... even if I have to kill her, which has been teh plan all along, but I was hoping to drag it out longer..." 

Alice nodded. She agreed with him: "Okay, we need to make sure the other doesn't follow us or know where we're going because they wouldn't be okay with this. We can tell Carlisle and Esme after we get back that they'll be the only ones on our side here." 

So, the two started planning their little trip. 

While Alice was talking to Edward, Jasper had gotten Rosalie and Emmett away from the house so that he could talk to them. 

Rosalie looked at him, "What's the matter Jas?" 

"have either of you noticed how different Alice has been acting since we left Forks?" 

"Now that you mention it, yeah, she's been weirder than normal," Emmett said, having noticed the difference in his adopted sister since they had been back in Alaska.

"Yeah, I've noticed too," Rosalie agreed, "she's been spending more time with Edward again, just like before we moved to Forks... you don't think that there's something going on there, do you?" 

Jasper sighed, "I don't know, maybe I've kind of suspected for a while, but when Edward was with Bella, Alice wasn't spending so much time with him, like before, so I thought maybe it was nothing... but now, Edward isn't with Bella anymore, and Alice is back to spending almost all of her time with Edward." 

"She's supposed to be your mate, so why is she spending more time with Edward than her supposed mate?" 

"Unless she lied about it all this time and somehow manipulated you into believing her..." Rosalie trailed off, "but why would she do that?" 

Jasper truly had suspected something was off for a while now but never acted like it around either Alice or Edward, hoping that maybe one of them would slip up, but that had yet to happen. "it's possible, I've suspected something was off for a while now but was waiting to see if one of them would slip up, but they haven't yet so they probably won't." 

"you need to confront her about it... or I will, and that definitely wouldn't be in anyone's best interest..." Rosalie said that if she said something to Alice, it would not end well for the pixie-haired vampire. 

Jasper knew that she was right. He needed to confront Alice about this and find out the truth. "once she gets back from wherever she disappeared, I will confront her about it." Rosalie nodded, and the three went back to the house, none of them thinking about the conversation they just had so that Edward wouldn't know. 

***

Noticing that they were the only ones in the house gave them a brief period of being completely alone, which they completely took advantage of before they left, running back to Forks to enact their little plan. 

"It's been so long since we've been able to do this." Alice breathed out. 

Edward nodded, "Yeah, I've missed it, but we couldn't raise suspicion, and we still can't because if anyone else finds out, then it won't be good." 

"I know, but I'm glad that we got to do it again... we should probably get ready to head out... we've got a lot of work to do to make sure this plan works." 

Edward turned to look at her and said, "You're right. We definitely should, especially before any of the others get back and find us like this." 

With that being said, they got everything together and left the house, heading back to Forks to enact their little plan, which was not going to work the way they thought it would because they wouldn't know until they got there that Bella wasn't even in Forks anymore, and they would have no clue where she was.